Hi,
as i was asked about the code of my blobtower-scene, i thought that i could post
it here, in case someone else wants to have a look at it too.
......Ok, it's not the actual code of that scene, just the macro that generates
the tower, and a small scene to show it. ;) (Not that there was much else in my
scene though...)

I modified the macro a bit, so that you can use any shape as base "landscape",
not just a plane.
I hope you find it usefull.

Greetings,
Icewind

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Attachments:
Download 'blobtower_macro.pov.txt' (6 KB)

No matter what I do, I can't get cool-looking glass with photons... Oh 
well, time to play some more. Do I need a hundred million photons for 
*something* to be visible??

I hope RAM usage doesn't go high, although I don't mind render times for 
the final image (old Mc Donald had a farm... :D)

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> No matter what I do, I can't get cool-looking glass with photons... Oh 
> well, time to play some more. Do I need a hundred million photons for 
> *something* to be visible??

photon spacing 0.01, max_trace_level 25, made the landscape have spheres 
along z instead of x.

#declare Tex1 = material {
   texture {
     pigment {rgbf <0.5,0.7,1.0,1.0>}
     finish {
       conserve_energy
       //specular 1
       //roughness 0.01
       reflection 0.5
     }
   }
   interior{ior 1.2}
}

I can barely see the photons.

I tried reflection {0,1} instead. It shot around five million photons 
and it's now rendering at **17 pixels per second** (and getting slower). 
Fun!

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Hi,
you should see *something* with spacings of 0.02 or higher, though it can be a
bit blurry. How much you will see depends on the form of the tower though, as
it's a nice irregular shape and many photons can be refracted or reflected
anywhere, just not onto the ground. ;)
You could try to put a light into the tower if it uses refraction, this can give
some nice caustics. (Could require some testing ;)
And better don't use refraction and reflection at once, as using both slows it
down quite a bit and doesn't do much for the image in my opinion... unless you
don't mind slow rendering...

I used the following for my tower:
#declare Mat1 = material {
  texture {
    pigment {rgbt <1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.9>}
    finish {
      specular 1
      roughness 0.001
      diffuse 1
      ambient 0
    }
  }
  interior {
    ior 1.5
    fade_color rgb <0.85, 0.90, 1.00>
    fade_distance 1.5
    fade_power 1000
  }
}


Btw, my original scene took about 2 hours at 1024*768 with anti aliasing. Photon
spacing was 1/110, max_trace_level 256 (i always use that number :p ) and RAM
usage was almost 1.2 gb, so i couldn't really get much more photons...

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I just rendered it with:
photons { spacing 0.01 }
#declare Tex2 = material {
   texture {
     pigment {rgbf <0.5,0.7,1.0,1.0>}
     finish {
       conserve_energy
       reflection 0.5
     }
   }
   interior{ior 1.2}
}
global_settings {max_trace_level 25}

2000 blob components. Photons are barely visible, and took only 19 
minutes. However, with reflection{0,1} I manage to reach the "pixels per 
minute" scale!

I'll try your material now.

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I made a rotating animation, see p.b.a.

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